occasional "Bios ROM checksum error" on boot ???

[avih]

lately, when i turn on my comp, i get this strange message on boot (just after the display card message):

----------
Award BootBlock Bios v1.0
Copyright 1998 ....

Bios ROM checksum error
Detecting floppy....
INSERT A SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
-----------

my bios was updated quite a while ago, and the firmware is from 2002 iirc (i now see there's a new bios, i'll update mine anyway).

it's a chaintech 7AJA2 board (http://www.chaintechusa.com/tw/eng/product_spec.asp?MPSNo=13&PISNo=46). i have to hard-reset several times untill it finally boots. if i shutdown and turn on shortly after, this usually doesn't happen. could it be the battery? how is it related to the bios checksum???

anyone seen this happen before? anyone knows a cure?

thx
avih

[communist]

Its a known issue with the K7S5A (ECS) - it just happens sometimes. A better PSU helps in that case.

But in your case I think it could be the battery. Try to find out if your board has such issues too.

[avih]

thx for your answer. my current PSU is about 1 year old. how is the PSU related to the bios checksum? i also replaced the battery about 2 years ago, shouldn't it have lasted longer?

but besides, eventhough the symptoms suggest that it's the battery (shutting down for a short period, and it boots ok), how is it related to the checksum? from my logic, the checksum should reside inside the rom, so what the message implies is that the rom is not consistent with itself, how can that be? or maybe the checksum is held in a battery suppoted ram? that seems unreasonable to me...

another possibility is that the message indicates an invalid checksum, but for the cmos data, which is kept using a battery. but they only had one error message in their arsenal ;)

thx again.

[communist]

The K7S5A has issues with PSU not being powerful enough (though it maybe a '300W' PSU...) it always lost its settings due to that.

I'm not sure if you're board is affected too by this but the battery should hold longer.
Try clearing the CMOS (there should be jumper for it - check the manual) and set everything up in the BIOS.
Maybe there is some weird data causing problems...

[The Edge]

The read-only memory (ROM) containing the BIOS program is protected by a checksum value as a double-check that the ROM code is correct. This checksum is compared against the values in the ROM each time the PC is booted and if there is a mismatch this code is generated.
Not the same as a CMOS Checksum error. I wouldn't think the PSU is at fault here IMHO. This board has a virus protection on it too so hopefully BIOS is not affected by a nasty virus.
Also, the board has a feature called "Twin-BIOS" so there should be a backup BIOS chip on the mobo if the other fails. JP7 jumper. Here's a pic (http://members.boards.ie/the_edde/AviH_Mobo.gif) from the manual ;)

Failing that, go for the updated BIOS on the first BIOS chip. Upon boot press Alt+F2 to enter the intergrated flash utility. Make sure you get the new BIOS as *.bin format. (Disable the flash protection in BIOS if needed) If that fails, I'd say most likey your BIOS ROM chip/s are f*cked :(
It could be possible to buy a rpl one from the likes of biosworld.com or badflash.com. Email them to find out.
Nice little mobo that 7AJA2 :)

Good luck mate.

Edge

[avih]

thx guys :)
i'll try both your advices. battery 1st though.
the the 1st trial of bios update wasn't successfull. it claimed that there's some mismatch between the new bios and the board version or something similar (tried only the flash utility from dos boot, didn't try the diskette one). regarding the twin bios, iirc i played with a long while ago, it bight even be at the 'dual bios' mode already. next time i'll boot with reset+power.

thx again for the advice. i'll post when i have new conclusions.
cheers
avih

[communist]

If possible dont flash your bios from 3,5" disk. The risk of flashing a bad bios / having a disk failure during flashing is so much higher in comparison to hdd / cdrom.

I've flashed a few mobos and always went with cdrom or hdd and never had one fail on me :)

If you're running Win 9x just boot into dos and flash from hdd. Otherwise burn your bios etc on a bootable cd and flash from there.

Those 3,5" disks are evil - they always fail at the wrong time. I once had to create a bootable disk to check my hdd... I had to create 3-4 disks. Only one worked :devil:

[avih]

after failing my previous attempts (the twin bios boot didn't work out as i got exactly the same result, flashing didn't work either with the symptoms i described already), and due to more headaches i get from my board (bsod, freezes, etc), i decided to buy a new mobo/cpu/mem.

thank you all for your help and time.
avih

ps.
if you're interested, i decided to buy the asus a7n8x-x board, athlonXP 2500+, and 512M 400Mhz ddr ram. cheers.

[The Edge]

That's a shame mate.:(

Good luck with the new mobo.....Goooo AMD! :)